Let’s break the suitable definition of marketplace:
A platform where variety of brands cater to a single set of audience. In which the brands compete in themselves to come up with the best offers and gain additional source of traffic from these marketplaces.
The purpose of this blog is to make edtech brands aware of which are teh platforms they need to be active to engage with thier crowd (students):
Few of the popular marketplaces that supports edtech brands:
GenZDealZ.ai: GenZDealZ.ai generates deals on-boarding India’s hyperlocal businesses & edtech brands specifically designed to empower the GenZ with AI/ML insights and discounts on variety of categories. By understanding the financial constraints faced by students and hence their GenAI engine churns out the best educational deals possible to make students life & college experience both affordable and enriching.
Amazon: Amazon isn’t just for shopping, rather it is also for accessing various learning materials (ebooks, books, learning software, etc.). Many Indian educators are using Amazon for distributing thier books, notes and guides for exams, due to thier amazing delivery system, Amazon becomes the 1st choice to list thier learning stuff.
Unstop: Supported by central govt. and a well funded learning platform for all kinda students. Not just focussing on internship, jobs or projects, but also hackathons, scholarships, contests, short quiz, Unstop talent, etc. You can say unstop as the total ecosystem for everything students need in thier academics.
Unstop is best for brands like Microsoft Learning, Byjus to launch various competitions, enter into teh campuses and gain some offline brand recall too.
Udemy: Though listing your courses on your own LMS has many benefits, utilising few third party platforms like Udemy helps to gain global reach. You may not list your signature course here, soemethign like a crash course/short masterclass would give students a brief taste of your teaching/delivery style.
I’ve given you the brief about the platforms popular in India. However there’re many cons of these marketplaces that may not favour your marketing strategy.
Cons of Various Marketplaces:
- External control & policies: Many terms are updated like payment period, commission or platform fee, watermark placement, etc. and this has a ripple effect on other platforms too.
- Students support: While mentioning doubt solving, LIVE QnA, etc. seems attractive. But if these commitments aren’t met students would lose the loyalty & won’t consider any of your future products from these 3rd party soruces.
- Leak of products/learning material: Sharing of notes/courses/any kinda recordings is common among Indian students (following our school approach – textbooks &guides sharing). So content security layers are affected when you involve external parties
- Ineffective followups: Leads are meant for instant followups. Especially students whore highly impatient needs quick communication by knowing thier want. You may not get the real time status of the leads
- Tech & uninformed updates: AI is the current change that is bringing new way to ask doubts, learning structured way and progressive analytics. Dashboard updates for students & for the vendor too becomes time consuming to learn & adapt further.